Welcome to the future, a world where it is news that a feature film is being shot on 35mm film instead of digital or in 3D. We now know that the new Star Trek film will be one of those such films, although that doesn’t mean we will be spared the 3-D post conversion.

MTV recently talked with J.J. Abrams about the 2013 film:

“I’m sure, like many people, you see what you do and you go, ‘I really could have done that one better, I should have done that, that was a mistake, more of this, less of that.’ You always do that… I’m hoping that as we do the next one, all the mistakes that I’ve made that I’ve hopefully learned from, I can bring to this one and hope make it better.

We’re shooting on film, 2-D, and then we’ll do a good high-end conversion like the ‘Harry Potter’ movie and all that. Luckily, with our release date now we have the months needed to do it right because if you rush it, it never looks good.

We were talking about [shooting in IMAX] and I would love to do it. IMAX is my favorite format; I’m a huge fan,”

While it is nice that J.J. is looking to get into the IMAX business, post conversion 3D has a rocky history. He sited the most recent Harry Potter film as the standard he expects, but even then shooting for 2D and converting it after the fact never looks as good.

We told told you recently that Peter Weller and Alice Eve had signed on to the cast of the new Star Trek sequel, joining the original crew and Benicio Del Toro who was in talks to play the villain. The speculation ran wild that Del Toro would be playing Kirk nemesis extraordinaire Kahn Noonian Singh. The one thing we can now know for certain is that Del Toro will not be Kahn, because he will not be in the movie.

Vulture is reporting that the talks between the actor and the producers broke down due to monetary issues. The speculation of the movie’s villain being Kahn had a lot to do with the fact that Del Toro fits the same mold that Ricardo Montalban so famously inhabited. J.J. Abrams has denied these rumors, but J.J. loves to keep things secret and anything he says about a movie in this stage of development is far from an official proclamation.

Those rumors might just get another boost as Variety reports Edgar Ramirez is now in talks to take over Del Toro’s assumed role. There is enough in common between Del Toro, Ramirez and Montalban that should keep the flames of Kahn hope alive and well for a few more weeks. 

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He may have his hands in half a dozen TV projects, and Zach Quinto may want to quit acting, but that isn’t stopping J.J. Abrams from continuing in his reimagined world of Star Trek with a second film.

First, Abrams announces that he wants She’s Out of My League starlet Alice Eve to have a juicy role in the upcoming sequel. This is the first hard confirmation of new casting news, seeing as the deal with Benicio del Toro has yet to solidify. From Variety.

As is common with Abrams, secrecy has surrounded the pic since the helmer officially announced he would be back — including which characters the new actors will play. Sources say Eve’s character is new to the “Star Trek” universe, unlike del Toro, would insiders believe will be playing someone familiar to Trekkies.

As if that isn’t juicy enough for all you diehards out there, an official date has also been announced, which will make it hard for actors like Quinto to continue to drag their heals.

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While most analysts thought that the famous team-up of JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg would be box office gold, but it looked like the film failed to draw a massive audience, as Super 8 only opened to an estimated $38 million this weekend.

The film only cost roughly $50 million to make, so the profit margin is larger than it would be on a bigger blockbuster. With critics knocking last week’s X-Men: First Class opening weekend draw of $55 million, this measly $38 million is just that. It turns out mediocre marketing and nameless on-screen talent isn’t all you need to have a big box office weekend.

After it’s big(ger) first weekend, First Class dropped about fifty percent, bringing it to $25 million in the domestic box office and almost $100 million worldwide since last weekend. Coming up in third place this week is the ever popular The Hangover Part 2 with an estimated $18 million.

Next week, we expect big things for the box office as Warner Bros’ Green Lantern opens in over 3,000 screens, and is one fourth of the big superhero blockbusters of 2011.

I’m hesitant to write a summary of Super 8 because I went in knowing nothing about it, had some reservations at first, but was so surprised at around the 10-minute mark that I immediately came on board. So if you’d like to enjoy it cold, read no further. Though I suspect that warning could apply to any film.

Super 8 takes place during the summer of 1979 and follows an outcast group of kids deeply engaged in one of the great pleasures of childhood: making movies. There’s the director Charles (Riley Griffiths), Joe, the makeup guy (Joel Courtney), a few of their bucktoothed, gangly friends, and the female lead Alice (Elle Fanning). Of course, these kids invest much more into their movies than my friends and I ever did (makeup? Multiple angles?), and one of the running gags is Charles’ insistence on production values, regardless of whether it endangers the cast and crew.

While shooting one of the scenes at an abandoned depot, a train barrels past and is derailed by a truck driving down the tracks. The magnificent crash is caught on film and the kids discover that the driver of the truck, who miraculously survives, is their science teacher Mr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), who tells them to get the hell out of there just as the feds arrive.

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While we may have a pretty deep review of the flick later today, there are still plenty of us who are waiting impatiently to see exactly what kind of magic can happen when screen legends J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg team up on a sci-fi picture in Super 8.

Much like Abrams’ last big original sci-fi flick Cloverfield, this film has been shrouded in some pretty deep mystery since we first got a glimpse of the trailer back in January. Here’s what we have for a synopsis, in case you still aren’t up to speed.

In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth – something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.

Filled with no-name child actors who will most likely steal the show, the film is as pure as Spielberg’s E.T. was nearly 30 years ago. Check out a brand new featurette on the film after the jump, and be sure to catch Super 8 in theaters starting today.

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Bad news for the new batch of Trekkies today, as Paramount and J.J. Abrams are close to announcing that the sequel to 2009′s blockbuster Star Trek will be pushed back another 6 months from June 29th, 2012 to a Holiday 2012 release. Deadline has the details.

This comes after Paramount pushed back the other franchise film in its arsenal that has Chris Pine as its star. Pine’s also playing Jack Ryan in the reboot of the Tom Clancy-created series. Pine was expected to shoot that film first, but the script wasn’t ready. Paramount hired David Koepp to rewrite Adam Cozad’s script. Koepp just began writing this week after completing his film Premium Rush.

Why is Star Trek in such precarious shape, just 13 months before its release date? The film has three top-flight writers in Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. Like Abrams, all of them have been busy on other films. Kurtzman directed Welcome to People. Orci has been busy on Cowboys & Aliens and in prepping the Gavin Hood-directed sci-fi epic Ender’s Game.

Lindelof has been busy working on Prometheus, the Ridley Scott film for Fox that was conceived as a 3D prequel until Lindelof came on to do a rewrite and changed the concept so much that they consider it an original. The result? It doesn’t sound like they are close to having a script that will live up to the high quality of the first film that revived a dead franchise. On the Trekkie fan site Trekmovie.com, Orci confessed this week that they have a 70-page outline, and are waiting for Abrams to commit so that they can really get going. Well, that is hardly an enviable position to be in, exactly 13 months before the release of the film.

So it looks like while Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman are off making tons of over multi-million dollar sci-fi blockbusters, our favorite crew trekking across the stars will have to wait. We’ll be sure to be on this as close as we can while a confirmation comes through.

We’ve been following this one for a long time since the days when we only knew a bit about the story. Fortunately, over the months we’ve gotten more and more info about J.J. Abrams Super 8, including a poster and a couple trailers.

Now, as the movie is getting even closer to its release date, we’ve got more to share with you in the form of an actual clip from the movie.

In this one we’re given a bit more of the scene where the kids are making the film that causes all the trouble. Unfortunately, a lot of it is the same footage we’ve seen already including the truck versus train explosion and the kids running from it.

It does, however, play up the obvious budding romance between the main kid and the girl that almost gets away. I wonder if, during the course of the film, those two crazy kids finally get together? And by “get together’ I mean hold hands or have one very innocent kiss, much like Elliott did during the “free the frogs” sequence in E.T. It is a Spielberg homage, after all.

Even if we have seen a lot of it before in other trailers and whatnot, it only serves to enhance my desire to see the entire film. Damn you Abrams, you got me.

Check out the new video after the jump. Super 8 arrives in theaters on June 10th.

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If you’ve got a movie directed by J.J. Abrams, Produced by Steven Spielberg that features some kids who team up and try to save a town from a misunderstood monster, you’re probably going to appeal to a geek audience. However, with all the movies, games and more available for geeks (and others) these days how can you be sure to reach the audience you need to?

How about putting an easter egg trailer for your upcoming film inside a newly released video game? That’s just what Paramount did with J.J. Abrams upcoming Super 8 and the brand new Portal 2 game.

The interactive trailer, which we have for you here, transfers the action to videogame graphics and puts you inside the train car that crashes and unleashes the alien. Sadly, while you can’t really do all that much in the level, it is a pretty cool way to make sure your target audience is fully invested in seeing the movie — not that Paramount really has to worry about that.

Check out the teaser after the jump. Portal 2 is available now. Super 8 hits theaters on June 10th.

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Previously, we had just a teaser for this upcoming J.J. Abrams homage to Steven Spielberg known as Super 8. Now, thanks to the magic of the Internets (and the Paramount PR department) we’ve got a full trailer for the movie to share with you today.

This one brings a lot more of the story and characters and goes a long way to cementing this as one of the must-see films of the year. Written and directed by Abrams, the film’s plot has been kept pretty close to chest until now.

From what we’ve gathered, a group of kids in 1979 catch something inexplicable emerge from a train wreck on their super 8 movie camera. Naturally, all hell breaks loose and these kids are the only ones who know something evil this way comes.

Not sure exactly how much Spielberg had in the way of direct influence on this movie, but his influence is felt heavly nonetheless. It looks and feels like a movie he would have made himself during the Close Encounters and E.T. days. And that, at least to us, is a good thing.

Check out the trailer after the jump. Super 8 hits theaters on June 10th.

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Last night’s Super Bowl brought in a few pretty great commercials, but two that stood out above the rest were the first trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger, and the brand new J.J. Abrams sci-fi thriller Super 8. On both counts, we got some of the very first footage of the film, getting us even more excited for it.

Written and directed by Abrams, the film’s plot has been kept pretty close to chest until now. From what we’ve gathered, a group of kids in 1979 catch something inexplicable emerge from a train wreck on their home video camera.

The big deal here is that this is the first joint venture between Abrams and master of extraterrestrial cinema, Steven Spielberg, who brings his experience and belief in unknown casting to the project.

Now, we get the first glimpse at this new film, and you will too, right after the jump.

Super 8 is set to hit theaters on June 10th.

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While things are a bit shaky in terms of what we’re calling the newest Mission: Impossible film, one thing is for sure: the cast is going to kick ass. Hawkeye himself, Jeremy Renner joined the cast a few weeks back, which was already headed by returning Cruise, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg, and the newly added Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q.

Now, a brand new face of awesome is jumping in, as LOST star Josh Holloway has been signed to join Cruise’s new team of super spies. This marks Holloway’s first major role since leaving the island, or dying, or staying in purgatory, or however you want to interpret that ending.

Between this cast, Incredibles director Brad Bird taking the helm, and J.J. Abrams supplying the story, there is very little room for this film to fail, or at least we hope. Megastar Cruise even took a pay cut in order for this film to get made, so it has that going for it.

The movie is set to go into production before the end of the year, with a release date of December 16th, 2011. Expect to hear plenty more news coming out of this camp in the coming weeks as we lead up to principal photography.